How to Back Up Your Smartphone and Transfer Files to a Computer

Similar to
computers, your smartphone or tablet requires a data recovery plan. We often
forget that the data on our handheld devices could easily be lost. For example,
imagine that your phone suddenly stops working. You don’t want all your photos
and music to be lost when this happens, do you?

What if you forgot iPad passcode? You may receive an error message saying your iPad is disabled. Such a scenario may require users to unlock, recover iOS system, or otherwise format the system entirely. If you have a data recovery plan in place, then replacing the phone or formatting the operating system becomes less of a hassle.

Experts highly
recommend that you back up all the data on your handheld devices to prevent a
data loss calamity. Some users may not understand how this process works.
Smartphone operating systems can be difficult to navigate, unlike a computer.
Read on to find out more about how to prevent smartphone data loss and how to
create a backup plan to protect important files:

Use Developer Provided Tools to
Back Up

Backing up data
on your smartphone or tablet is relatively easy if you are using tools already
provided by the OS developer. For Android, this would be Google. A phone
setting option is provided by Google to quickly backup everything on your
phone. Open the settings option on your smartphone, go to the Google section,
and you should see a backup option. On certain Android phones, the backup
option is under Google account settings on your phone.

Your data files
will be backed up to Google Drive when you choose this option. Remember, you
would need to have a Google account synched for this to work. A list of data
files will appear, such as your photos, videos, call history, contacts and so
on. You can manually choose which of these to backup from the settings menu.

For iPhones and iPads, you may choose to back up all data to iCloud. Apple offers up to 5GB of free space on iCloud that you can use to store backup files. Just like with Google Drive, you can select this option to save files without a computer.

Users of iOS
also have a secondary option to backup data to iTunes, in case they don’t have
an iCloud account. Your iPhone or iPad would backup data to your iTunes
account. You can then access these files from your computer.

Directly Backup to Your
Computer

Do you feel that
setting up a cloud account on Google or
Apple is too much work? If so, you can manually backup all files on your
smartphone by transferring data to a PC or a Mac. Simply connect the phone to
your computer using a USB cable or Bluetooth. You will now be able to view all
data files stored on the handheld device. Copy the files you need and paste them
on the hard drive. And voila, you will have copies of important files on your
phone on your computer.

Use a Data Backup and Recovery
Tool

If the above
options don’t work for you, use a third-party
backup tool to keep files on your handheld devices safe. This option is
recommended for users who don’t want to open Google or Apple accounts. Also, if
your computer does not recognize your smartphone, this option would be ideal.

You can download
data recovery and backup apps to your phone. The app you choose would backup data
either to a microSD card or to the cloud account you specify. Most data
recovery apps offer additional perks apart from backup. For example, you may acquire
useful tools to repair damaged files or even be able to erase unwanted files.
These options are not available with Google or Apple built-in backup tools.

Don’t Wait to Back Up Your
Phone

The golden rule
of keeping your phone data safe is to back it all up. You may need to create
new backup points as you add new files to your phone. Therefore, set a date on
your calendar each month or three months ahead to back up data on your devices.

Try the options
suggested above to keep your smartphone files safe. Using the developer
provided option is the most reliable and convenient. However, if you require additional
features, consider a third-party data recovery tool.